the constituents as well as the physicians didn't want the cut.......reimbursement for medicare pts. is low already..lowering reimbursement further is not the answer better efficiency is

Teddy Kennedy embarrassed the GoPervs into it. Yay, Ted.

Just 3 vetos overridden in 7 1/2 years of the worst president ever? That's a damn shame.

Oh Woopee!! The one bill they override is the one that will benefit the pharmaceuticals more than the average person. Probable a bought vote too.

Hmmm. Denying seniors choices of which HMO to belong to? One of the more obscene provisions of the Medicare Modernization Act was the creation of these Medicare Advantage Plans. In a wonderful Republican style twofer this provision was designed to make the Medicare trust fund go broke faster by siphoning off more money and to drive seniors out of traditional Medicare and into HMO's. The Republican ideal was realized in the Medicare Advantage Fee for Service Plan where most of the enrollment was going. Under these plans the insurance companies provided no "advantage" over traditional medicare, unless limiting which doctors you can see is an advantage, and collected a 12%-15% federal subsidy.

Kennedy would probably have returned from the grave to reverse this obscenity.

Maybe some of the them are just now starting to figure out the GOP playbook. anytime something benefits the average american vs. their big corporate donors, it isn't "fiscally responsible". to me that is just the Big Bell saying it must be a Good Idea then. Because everything is assbackwards in bushland.

Whooopeee! So, the Bush Administration has now provided cover for the majority of Republican Congressional folk who can now go back and inform their constituents that they STOOD UP TO THE TYRANNY OF THE PRESIDENT (TM).

Puleeeze.

Anyone who can't see this for the political theater it is hasn't been paying attention to the past 8 years.

Ducks @ 9:

Hmmm. Denying seniors choices of which HMO to belong to? One of the more obscene provisions of the Medicare Modernization Act was the creation of these Medicare Advantage Plans. In a wonderful Republican style twofer this provision was designed to make the Medicare trust fund go broke faster by siphoning off more money and to drive seniors out of traditional Medicare and into HMO's. The Republican ideal was realized in the Medicare Advantage Fee for Service Plan where most of the enrollment was going. Under these plans the insurance companies provided no "advantage" over traditional medicare, unless limiting which doctors you can see is an advantage, and collected a 12%-15% federal subsidy.

Yeah. One of the big players in these Medicare HMO "Advantage" scams, is UnitedHealthGroup. Their CEO pulls down about $30 million a year.

Hasn't anyone ever heard of preventive maintenance?

Al Gore's speech today on climate change http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/07/17/sot.gore.speech.cnn?iref=... http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/07/17/sot.gore.speech.cnn?iref=...

Congress has an 18% approval rating. They're even less popular than the average Congress, and perhaps not doing anything about a Prez with a 28% approval reason is why.

The dirty little secret of the originally scheduled 10% pay cut?

Medicate had been holding back making payments for treatment given this year until AFTER the pay cut was supposed to go into effect.

rain @ 17:

Hasn't anyone ever heard of preventive maintenance?

Ever hear of old age? Catastrophic illness? Car accidents?

From The Capital Times (Wisconsin):

Mayors Make Good Move On Health Care

by Dave Zweifel

It didn’t get much attention last week— the country’s obviously preoccupied with the state of the economy and out-of-control oil prices — but there was a significant development in the growing movement to fix the broken American health care system.

For the first time, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the high-powered national organization that met here in the summer of 2002 and gathered this year in Miami, adopted a resolution at its annual convention supporting national single-payer health insurance.

The resolution, adopted unanimously by the mayors, specifically calls on Congress to enact H.R. 676, the bill sponsored by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and 90 other members of Congress including the 2nd District’s own Tammy Baldwin.

“This is a major achievement, a qualitative change in the movement for genuine health care reform,” said Dr. David Prensky, a member of the Chicago-based Physicians for a National Health Care Program. “It shows that our country’s mayors now support the kind of approach that every other industrialized country has — an approach that guarantees health care for everyone at an affordable cost.”

Conyer’s bill, which would guarantee everyone care for all medically necessary services much like Medicare does for the nation’s senior citizens, realistically isn’t going to get very far during this session of Congress. It’s becoming clear, though, that the momentum for a universal health care system is growing.

What can finally turn the tide is this fall’s national elections.

Voters need to hold candidates’ feet to the fire on where they stand on this crucial issue.
..

[all bold mine]

“I urge the Congress to send me a bill that reduces the growth in Medicare spending (cut spending), increases competition and efficiency (be more like the private sector), implements principles of value-driven health care (deny really sick folks treatment) and appropriately offsets increases in physician spending (cut more spending),” he said in his veto message.

"implements principles of value-driven health care "

WTF!
Is he really advocating denial of healthcare for those with prexisting conditions and the terminally ill?
Or am I reading this wrong?

Your life is of little too no value you poor sap, no healthcare for you, now hurry up and die because you're wasting oxygen!

Liberal AND Proud @ 25:

rain @ 17:

Hasn't anyone ever heard of preventive maintenance?

Ever hear of old age? Catastrophic illness? Car accidents?

So you're saying sh*t happens?

OF COURSE this PROVES they could do it all along on most pressing matters.

But PLEASE don't refer to life saving medical care as "less pressing" than other matters!

Without being ALIVE there isn't much point in everything else you know!!!!!

Dead is dead no matter what your beliefs are.

NATIONALIZED MEDICAL CARE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING WE NEED.

Americans are sick. They need to be made well, be fed well, be housed, be educated, and set free to do all the rest.

Without the government being an agent of oppression... which it currently IS.

Yellowbird @ 33:

OF COURSE this PROVES they could do it all along on most pressing matters.

But PLEASE don't refer to life saving medical care as "less pressing" than other matters!

Without being ALIVE there isn't much point in everything else you know!!!!!

Dead is dead no matter what your beliefs are.

NATIONALIZED MEDICAL CARE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING WE NEED.

Not that the massaging of the existing systems is not a good thing but what we really need is a single payer universal health care system that operates much like our social security system.

Americans are sick. They need to be made well, be fed well, be housed, be educated, and set free to do all the rest.

Without the government being an agent of oppression... which it currently IS.

herr dubyah is going to start a war with Iran just to get back at the Congress.

Liberal AND Proud @ 25:

rain @ 17:

Hasn't anyone ever heard of preventive maintenance?

Ever hear of old age? Catastrophic illness? Car accidents?

Try getting medicare to pay for preventive maintenance. If you get a physical this year, you can't get a pap smear. If you get a pap smear, no physical and on and on.........

Well that's just peachy. So glad all the pols have something to crow about back home now. Some bit of 'I stood up to the bad bad president for you good people who will vote for me again and again'...Yea, fine, whatever, but lets talk about donut holes.... No, not the kind Homer Simpson and some cops drewl over.... I'm talking about that famous donut hole that was being touted along with this so-called value-driven health care b.s not so long ago.....

I'm sure it looked good on paper to someone, probably an insurance C.E.O and the lobbyist who wrote it up for Senator Useless to sign on to... And for sure a full court press was used to sell it to the rest of us.... And whether anyone actually bought into it or not, we had to swallow it just like the big shit sammich from Full Metal Jacket fame... But I'll tell you how this shit plays out in reality..in the real world of the average middle class family or the working poor or anyone but the obviously wealthy, who skip it anyway, and get their designer healthcare thru other means..

You or someone you love gets seriously ill, your mom, your dad, grandma someone legitmately on medicare... maybe with some bit of additional insurance... Someone you care about, someone from that famous greatest generation fame yadda yadda.... Medicare kicks in and pays the health care industry to get you all better.. Yeesss!!!... But no, not really... It will get you some percentage of the way back to health.. then it just stops... At which point medicaid would kick it... but no, not the way it plays out or is even suppose to work... You find yourself in that donut hole.... Whats your options??? Well you use up whatever other existing insurance policy you have... Then?

'You' start paying, and if you don't have the cash? You end up liquidating your assets. The end result is that any family estate is syphoned off to pay what amounts to ridiculously astronomical health bills noone save the wealthy could afford anyway.... Think it's not astronomical? How bout $35.00 for a freaking aspirin just because it was someone in a hospital giving it to you... That ain't even scratching the surface of ridiculous..... And what's the alternative?? It's either that or you just lose whatever gains you made in recovery, your illness overtakes you and you die..... The stark choice is either allow a system to tranfer whatever little bit of wealth your family might have in the way of whatever over to a system that won't get you what you really need... Or you just wait for the end to come to your loved ones, watching helpless... And usually these loved ones end up warehoused in some ill ran nursing home for the final act in this perverse play, while you slowly watch them lose hope and die. If you can swing it, you care for them yourself which only prolongs the agony and spreads the syphoning from their direct assets, on over to yours as well. And what's a person to do in that situation??? Not help??? Yea, right, only if you have no soul..........

And our so-called greatest healthcare system the world?? The health'care' system??? (That racket??) It doesn't give a damn because the for profit model has undermined the hypocratic oath of physicians and everyone else connected to the industry system in the incessant need to max out profit or else... Even at the expense of the health of the nation...

'Preventive' healthcare??? Something that used to be preached in times past, and may still see some lip service... Just another casualty of the bean counters who are actually making the doctors decisions for them nowadays..... Preventive healthcare doesn't make money dammit!! Hell that gets people well and prevents them from getting sick in the first place thru advocation of good habits and Jesus fucking Christ, noone can make money that way... Not if people aren't getting sick!!!...
Wassamatterwitchuboy??? The for profit model, much like the cigarette industry model 'NEEDS' a constant flow or clients to remain viable as a business model...........

It may be all nice and neat and legal with all the i's dotted and t's crossed.... But that don't make it right. Just another shit sandwich forced down everyone throat in George W. Bush and the wall street privatizers America....... Morally repugnant is way too nice a phrase to throw at this shit... Fucking makes me sick!!! Anyone with a brain knows the answer, and unlike the morass that is the presidential campaign or our pathetic foreign policy and bullshit wars of choice.. I damn well have an idea to address this...

A national health care model from cradle to grave paid for by a taxation process. And for those who don't like the idea of a tax to fund a health care model that might prevent the kinds of nightmares I just outlined, please do tell me how you feel about the trillions being burned up over George and Dicks bullshit war of greed and desire to control someone elses oil... Those are tax dollars too you know. 'Our' tax dollars turning the world against us and getting innocent people killed!!!.... If we just stopped doing that, we'd probably have plenty to fund this idea right there with enough pocket change left over to fund publically financed election too.... Yea, I know, that's just crazy talk...
Much better for us to just say to hell with our parents, our middle class, our whole freaking society... After all, there's plenty of money to be made over all this fucking misery........right!!! RIGHT!!! YEA! Yer goddamned right I'm pissed!!!!!! JD

I googled it, and found out 42 million people are on Medicare. Next February I turn 65, and add me to that list. I was scared shitless after the first vote failed, and it appeared they would cut the payments to Doctors etc. I'm dumbfounded that Bush could actually still veto that bill. He's an idiot beyond words. I knew he threatened to veto it, but when it was passed veto proof, what kind of a monster would still rub it in the faces of 42 million VOTERS? I consider it a complete insult that McCain didn't consider this important enough to show up for that vote. I know he would have voted against it, so he's with the group who would step over the bodies of their mothers! Of every bill that has gone through Congress lately, nothing has been more critical and would have affected more people than this one. Bush should always be remembered for this heartless act, but then, it does pale in comparison to so much he's done! After the nightmare that our representatives in Washington have been, the final count in both Houses was just amazing! Who could have ever even hoped for a final vote that high?

Personally, I'm surprised the spineless Dems overrode a veto. You know, Bush is at a 28 percent approval rating! Most popular president in history!

Wait. We have a congress? When did that happen?